Turning Over a New Leaf, and Other Cliches
by naqaashi
Summary: When an evil overlord with a megalomaniac complex decides to turn over a new leaf, he realises he needs help. And the perfect candidate for the job would be the priestess who killed him 500 years ago.
1. When Resumes Don't Count

**A/N: This is my first Naraku/Kagome, and was spawned via a plunnie that Sugar0o stuck onto me years ago. So r0o, here's to you, and I hope you like it! The story will be published in drabble form, each chapter ranging between 100 and 300 words.**

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

**Many thanks to TheSorrowfulVampress, my lovely beta!**

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Undo top three buttons.

Get the bedhead look.

Swill smelly whiskey in mouth and spit it out.

Drive over to shrine with rock music disturbing every neighbor in the neighborhood.

Very well, not disturbing. Entertaining. They had all seen her do this about once a week for the past year. Not precisely this, she comforted herself, but something or the other along the lines of this anyway. There was old Kobayata-san nodding approvingly at her as she flashed past his store, now. He ought to, she griped mentally. The last grapevine regurgitation had told her in no uncertain terms that he was pegging five thousand yen on exactly five minutes.

Personally, Kagome thought he'd do better on three. Honest, upright people with a family reputation to maintain would take about that long to hightail it out of the shrine in their haste to avoid getting an unrepentant alcoholic skank for a daughter-in-law, she guessed.

Of course, Higurashi Kagome was as much a woman of questionable morals as she was a dope-eating dreadlocked monkey, pregnant with an illegitimate child, a walking swearword vending machine and other charming creatures in the same vein.

Screeching to a halt in front of the shrine steps, she checked her reflection in the rearview mirror one last time. Too straightforward, she decided, and added a sleepy, sultry look to the clear blue eyes that stared back at her. Then she sashayed up the stairs and into her childhood home, ready to slay the matrimonial demon of the day.

Fifteen minutes later, she huddled in her old room with clothes buttoned to the neck, hair approaching prime realty for homeless birds and a bottle of smelly whiskey rapidly disappearing down her throat. She was engaged. To be married. To a Furusawa-san.

A Furusawa Naraku-san.

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**Review, please! It acts as fodder for my muse, and makes me very happy!**


	2. When Labels Refuse to Stick

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: Prompt – Snippet. Because I felt like I needed a push.**

Higurashi Kagome was many things. A child of the present, a messiah of the past, hope for the future – she had transcended the edges of time. Consequently, many epithets had been applied to her name. Some were flattering; others were the result of very bad public relations drawn from the reflected disgrace of travelling with a very dirty-mouthed half-demon, a bratty little kitsune, a leering monk and a raging feminist with hungry kitten attached.

She cast around desperately for a suitable word to convey her mood, and decided on 'certain'_._

Because she was willing to bet two pints of a soul to a rotten tentacle that she had quite firmly dispatched _that man_ to the underworld. If there had been enough of him left to dispatch by the time she was done with him, that is. She was less certain of her odds there, but willing to err on the side of caution and go with _not very much._

Then what in the name of heaven, hell and a few other nasty places were those snippets of silk and a stray piece of fluff from a very unfashionable pelt, to say nothing of a sucker or two from a stubborn tentacle, doing in the living room proposing to take her off her family's hands over afternoon tea, for the love of all that was holy, including Kikyo, for good measure?

Perhaps 'hysterical' would be a better frame of mind to settle on, her brain suggested ever so helpfully.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, da- oh bugger it all, already, _motherfucking hell in stinking arseholes, what the fuck is going the fuck on, in fuck's name!"_ she screeched, at the end of her tether.

"Peace, love and an engagement, darling," came the smooth, sardonic rejoinder of _that man _from the doorway.

**Read and Review! You know you want to! And I certainly want you to! :P**


	3. When Target Practice Fails

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: Prompt – N/A. Because an update was well past due.**

The house stood intact. No rumblings or crumblings or otherwise alarming grumblings that indicated a swift evacuation in the near future. Miraculously, the house was _intact_. No shuddering and shakings and shivering to signal impending loss of life and limb should one be standing under the roof when it caved in.

But then, the roof wasn't going to cave in, was it?

Because the house was completely inta – Kagome noted, with relief, that there was a hole in her bedroom window. The house was _not_ intact. And the incessant voice had mercifully shut its hysterically oblivious self up and abandoned her to assess the catastrophe.

Said catastrophe was staring out said hole to the rather heavy table lamp that was fizzing purity on the ground beneath the window, having missed its intended destination.

Abruptly, he whirled and pinned a fierce glare on her. Kagome stilled instantly, paperweight held aloft and ready for assault. The power in those gleaming ruby irises hadn't changed one iota, she noted. They could still freeze her in terror, leeching all confidence in her abilities, because who was she but a base human in front of an even baser monster? Still, she had vanquished him before.

_And I'll do it again, even if I have to do it alone,_ she determined, gathering her courage about her. _Inuyasha, Sango, guys…lend me your strength! _

She braced her arm, readying the paperweight, when her mother's cheerful voice announcing her return stopped her for a moment.

Of course, _that man_ couldn't resist the opportunity to run his mouth again. "Come now, my pearl. If you're going to show such abusive tendencies so prematurely, I'm going to have to add some clauses to the pre-nuptial contract. How troublesome…."

Naturally, her mother walked into the room just in time to prevent murder.

**Read and Review! You know you want to! And I certainly want you to! :P**


	4. When Men Refuse to Die

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: Prompt – Liquid. Yay, someone prompted me…randomly, it's true…but random prompts are good, no?**

It was easy to see where Kagome got her superhuman perceptive powers from – even if said powers were on a full scale rebellion presently. Not that they could be blamed, poor things. _That man_ would tempt an angel to profanity and cynicism.

Clearly, the Higurashi matriarch was some level of God. Fifteen minutes of yelling and accusations and death glares, and the lady had them sat down civilly to a tea party, with a full understanding of her daughter's plight and without raising her voice once.

Not an easy thing to do when your daughter was wailing at you for having sold her off to the devil in exchange for shrine repair funds.

Making a mental note to confiscate her father-in-law's pineapple candies and her son's video games for botching this up so magnificently, she set about smoothing ruffled feathers and reducing smug grins to acceptable levels of offensiveness.

"So, we're _not_ engaged?" Kagome sighed in relief.

Mama Higurashi sent a quelling look at _that man_ when he would have interrupted. "Certainly not, honey! Did you think for a second I'd allow it?"

"So what's all this about the shrine needing a fortune and stuff, all of a sudden? And WHY didn't anyone tell me anything before?"

"The shrine's in trouble, it's true. They want to demolish it and put up some fancy mall on this land. BUT - ," and Kagome tamped down her outrage, "but, the government's not stupid and this community's standing behind us. We've got six months to find ourselves a permanent sponsor…or protector. Furusawa-san has pledged himself quite generously, but he wished to have a stronger tie to the shrine."

Kagome stared at her tea, unwilling to think of the implications.

Her mother seemed to understand her dilemma, but she issued a reminder all the same, "The shrine can't go, Kagome. You know that."

Kagome did, unfortunately. Too much was at stake here – the Goshinboku, the Noh Mask, the extinguished well – and horror of horrors – herself. The Shikon was tied to the shrine in unimaginable little ways. The shrine was its _home_, its last refuge.

And now, her last refuge.

_Mama's right. The shrine can't go. _But to hand herself over to _that man_…did he know she didn't have it any longer? Kagome thought fast; her mother wouldn't have considered this angle to _that man's_ intentions, but then her mother didn't know who he was either. _She_ knew, and she couldn't let this go. Something had gone wrong in the past, and it had to be fixed.

A slight cough reminded her that a reaction was expected. Kagome hid her fear and assumed Disguise 101: Outraged Prude.

"So he'll take his money back if he can't get me?" she snarled, refusing to look at the man in question.

Said man perked up at the chance to defend himself. "I'm a respectable man who doesn't believe in the flesh trade, my dear. Not even if you insist."

Kagome gritted her teeth. _Yes, Naraku must die. Again._

**Read and Review! You know you want to! And I certainly want you to! :P**


	5. When Zombies Come Courting

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: Prompt – N/A. I had a hard time writing this one…this story is turning out to be a LOT tougher than I imagined it would be. That's why it's taken me so long to update. I didn't want to put out something half-assed just for the sake of meeting a deadline. **

Furusawa Naraku had been told numerous times through his childhood and youth that he must be some kind of imp from the depths of hell. Few of those people had known the extent of impishness and the precise layer of hell it derived from, however. It hadn't stopped him from raising their speculations. He hated disappointing his detractors. Everything they demanded of him, he provided.

Everything except the clear difference between fact and fiction. It was the chief reason why he had been allowed to get away with pretty much anything during his brief time on earth. Getting a straight answer out of him wasn't worth the cost of an extended stay in a straitjacket, as everyone who knew him was fond of reiterating.

Who was "everyone"? Naraku decided it mattered little. The important thing was seeing how long it would take for the lovely little thorn in his side to join the "everyone says" list.

He suspected it would take a while. Her tenacity was legendary, after all, and he had witnessed it firsthand. Consequently, he appreciated that she was trying to _converse_ him into revealing his agenda instead of threatening him with something sharp and sparkly with reiki. He made a mental note to thank Mrs. Higurashi for imposing a time-out and insisting they talk their issues out instead of letting her daughter behave like a common hooligan with zero sense of hospitality.

So there they were, sitting beneath the mighty boughs of Goshinboku – Kagome must have been trying to shame him into answering honestly by reminding him of that awful Inuyasha's plight. He gave a mental snort. Guilt was something he never indulged in.

He sighed inwardly, _such a peaceful, romantic setting gone to waste. _They could have been trading autobiographies and taking the first step towards matrimony, but so far conversation had consisted of Kagome inventing ways of asking him how he remained alive. So far they had covered the scientific, the fantastic and the unrealistic. He hoped that it would end at possessed baboon fur, but Mr. Hope wasn't listening.

"You're a zombie, then."

He forgot whatever bit of flirting he'd been preparing in retaliation and blinked at her.

"You know. Ugly, slimy, brain-obsessed, undead critters. Haven't you seen _Night of the Living Dead_?"

He was saved from answering that when Mrs. Higurashi interrupted them with a smile. "You two must be getting along quite well! Now, I hate to break this up, but it's getting quite close to lunchtime. You'll stay, Furusawa-san? It'll give you two more time to get acquainted and make a decision."

Judging from his soon-to-be fiancée's expression, she hoped he'd develop food poisoning later. But she didn't immediately object, so he accepted the invitation with alacrity.

"Excellent! Is there anything in particular that you'd like? I haven't cooked yet…"

A slow, disarming smile bloomed on his face. "Brain, please."

"Su..err.._what?_"

"I expect it'll be the perfect dish for me, if what your daughter says is any indication," he clarified sweetly.

**Do review, my wonderful readers! ^_~ Don't you want to tell me what you thought?**


	6. When Intentions are Foolishly Declared

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: Prompt – **_**Stop Sign**_**, submitted by **Lady Chrysanthe** in a review. I know it's grievously late. Truth is, I got so caught up in another story that I completely sidelined this one. It was pretty inconsiderate of me, and I'm sorry, because the long hiatus has only made this story harder for me than it would otherwise have been. I promise to deliver regular updates now. At least one every 7-10 days. **

_Something doesn't ring true._

For once, Kagome, her ancient nemesis, and oddly, Mrs. Higurashi were thinking the same thing. Silence pervaded the meal Mrs. Higurashi had so carefully prepared for her prospective son-in-law. Not silence, no. Perhaps it would be more accurately described as a medley of silences.

Kagome radiated hostility and a touch-me-not air. Her brain still couldn't connect the dots between the vanquished spider hanyou of Feudal Japan, and the eerily amiable young man who resembled him in every way but one.

Naraku preferred to fill his time between bites contemplating his potential bride. She would make a highly reluctant bride, that much was clear by her homicidally terrified reaction to him. It was a slight relief to the man that her fear had ebbed away, but he wondered if the suspicion and fury rooted in her gaze were worthwhile compensation. And why wasn't she interrogating him about his presence?

The Higurashi matriarch, on the other hand, not having the benefit of knowledge, wondered why her daughter was making such a fuss. Kagome resented the regular stream of _omiai_ they set up for her, but this time her daughter was going out of her way to make herself disagreeable. Yet, something was coiled in a tense spring under the girl's seeming misbehaviour. Mrs. Higurashi wondered what it could mean, because Kagome never got that battle-ready aura about her unless some fantastical mischief was afoot. They'd had a few stray spirits attempting to cause mischief about the shrine before, but this young man was normal as normal could be...or he was adept at _seeming_ it, she realised with a sudden flash of intuition.

Abruptly, the contemplative undercurrent of the room's occupants switched to determination: _This will need looking into._

Post-lunch, Naraku made his goodbyes and prepared to drive off. To no one's surprise, Kagome offered to see him to his car. "It' only polite," she justified rather needlessly. Al three of them knew that her only intention was to snoop.

Or declare said intention, Naraku realised with faint exasperation and more than a little amusement, some minutes later.

"Silly move, isn't it? Your honesty always was your downfall," he warned.

"It was _not_!"

"Your mouth, my sweet – and oh, what a sweet mouth" – he braved through a deadly glare – "always did get you in trouble. And your friends aren't around to save you any longer."

Kagome gritted her teeth. _I refuse to get into a catfight with this monster._ That he could mention her friends so casually was unforgiveable, but a philosophical part of her nudged her away from the outrage. The half-demon had committed crime after crime; this was perhaps the mildest of them all.

And she was determined to know. _Know what_, her inner cynic asked. The former warrior priestess smiled in response. A slow, slow smile that curved along her face without quite reaching her eyes.

Naraku and her inner cynic shut up.

"You may consider us engaged, Furusawa-san. You see, I'm going to find out _everything_ about you," she announced breezily.

The irrepressible man blinked, then smiled himself. A lot like a cat and not enough like a spider, a discomfited Kagome decided. "Then," he drawled, "I need not assume that I will be presented with a stop sign every time I take some liberties…," swift as a bird, he pecked a kiss on her hand, "do I?"

Kagome froze – in fear or disgust or both – and fled inside to plot her first murder ever, reborn demons and their dark intentions and her nagging need to discover and thwart said intentions be damned.

**Now we're getting somewhere. I apologise for the shoddy quality of this one, but I'd still like to hear what you think!**


	7. When Hospitality is Offered

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: Prompt – **_**News Crew**_**, submitted by **anmbcuconnfan** in a review. I'm so sorry – I broke my promise about updating soon...again. :( But I'll try and do better this time. **

**And I learnt how to format the lines! Whee!**

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It was strange, Kagome reflected, panting in fear and trying desperately not to look down, that she should finally find it within herself to get proactive right when she need to be so.

And it was entirely _his_ fault, she thought venomously, refusing to name him even in the privacy of her mind. She should have been safely in her bed right then, snuggling into her blanket with a good Jo Beverley and lots of hot chocolate and maybe a cheese sandwich or two.

Not thirty feet in the air, clinging precariously to the plumbing of a dilapidated old Portuguese mansion on the outskirts of the city with a grip that was getting sweatier and looser by the minute. She swallowed a lump of frozen terror trying not to think about falling and cracking her head open. With the overgrown foliage encrusting the mansion's grounds, her body would likely rot for weeks before being found. "I hope they think it's a murder case_,_" Kagome muttered savagely. "Call the news crews and every criminal investigation unit in the city and investigate the _hell_ out of that…that…_man_. And indict him for murder. Murder till he hangs."

She could feel the hilt of the knife hidden beneath her clothes, digging into her ribs as she took a minute to catch her breath. _Oh, hang this. No one's getting to him till I've killed him first._

She gritted her teeth and pulled her self up, hand-over-hand till she reached the open window on the second-floor. Straining with the effort of exercising muscles that hadn't been in use for years, the young woman hefted herself over the sill and tumbled headlong into a lamplit room, resplendent with soft bed and a tea-table laden with snacks.

_Whuh?_

Closer inspection revealed that the bed was fusty and likely infested with bed-bugs, while the snacks – energy bars piled in castle-like shapes – were topped with a neatly scripted note addressed to her: "My darling fiancée, apologies for the general shabbiness of my hospitality. I regret that you will be unable to murder me tonight as I have been called out of town on urgent business. If you would be so kind as to leave me a little notice before hand, I'll do my best to be available. Yours, Naraku."

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** Don't look at me. It wasn't my idea. Nope, not at _all. _Review!**


	8. When Former Xenas Reach Their Limit

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: No prompts were used for this one. **PhoenixBlade** did submit three, but I'll be using them in the next drabble, as this one was already half-written!**

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"This isn't happening. This. Is. Not. Happening. It _can't_ be."

"I'm very afraid that it _is_," an eerily muffled voice came from somewhere in the bedroom.

Kagome whirled about with a shriek, eyes darting wildly about the room, wondering if she was hearing things. Well, she was, a strictly pedantic voice inside her head pointed out, but the question was – was she hearing them in reality or in imagination?

_Knock._ _Knock._

The voice in her head shut up as she stilled in fright, trying to decide if it was worth risking her life to investigate her fiancé's crazy games. Because it _was_ a game, she could tell. Somewhere in the point between this life and his last, Naraku had grown a sense of humour. The trouble lay in her uncertainty of its degree of lethality; the half-demon had always found the most awful things funny, taking fiendish delight in his murderous schemes. _But has he grown out of it_, she wondered, and then wondered why she was bothering to analyse.

This Naraku might be human, through and through, but he clearly remembered all of his previous life. Remembered it enough to have no regret for it.

Remembered it enough to want to cap his defeat with revenge, because there could be no other reason for worming into her life, tormenting her like this.

_Do I want to dance with him?_ _Do I want to know why he is reborn? Why he found me, HOW he found me? Do I wish to engage with this humanoid relic of an ancient monster who killed all my friends before I managed to take him down?_

The answer, from all the voices in her head, was a resounding and final _no._

The knocks came again, this time clearly from within a closet tucked into the far corner of the room and Kagome lost her patience.

Marching up to the closet – really an armoire, now that she had a closer look – she yanked the doors open and plunged the knife she was carrying deep into his heart. The smugness on his face faded with each new drop of blood blossoming from the wound, and she could feel the familiar bloodlust rising in her at the sight.

She stabbed him again. And again, again, again and yet again, till she'd torn him almost to ribbons.

And then she watched, with murder clouding her eyes and satisfaction writhing through her, as he collapsed on the floor, vision glazed and body torn, staring at her with some emotion she couldn't be bothered to identify.

"You…were supposed to say….'who's there,'….silly woman….Didn't you know…..joke?" he wheezed, using the last gasps of air left in him to make one last attempt at getting to her.

The priestess was tempted to ignore the question. But it was his final stand, she supposed, even if it was a pitifully ineffective one. _Poor half-demon. Can't do a thing without his tentacles raising hell about him. _

He didn't deserve any mercy. But he did perhaps deserve a punchline.

"I am done with you. All of you. I was done with you when I destroyed you, so many years ago."

Something twisted his face then, again, something she didn't care to know. All that mattered to the former warrior was that her nemesis was bleeding to death on the floor and he wasn't doing it quickly enough. She thrust the knife into him one last time, keeping it there till the last twinkle of life fled his eyes.

Then Kagome slipped out of his house and returned to her life.

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**Note to reforming villains – don't bait a priestess who can kill you dead without needing to think about it. Review, review! :D**


	9. When Life Does Not Ameliorate With Time

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: Prompts used – **_**ameliorate, vanilla, broom**_**. **PhoenixBlade **submitted these in a review!**

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Another busy day in the city; a day of housecleaning and laundry and vanilla milkshakes for lunch and ringing up the last sale of a day with only seven sales total and watching a good portion of the money earned trickle away into groceries.

Kagome dropped the bags at her feet and slumped dejectedly on the kitchen floor. It had always been a hard life. It had been hard growing up as sole heir of the oldest shrine in the city and having no interest in its workings. It had been hard watching her father die and her mother struggle to cheerily raise two children on meager government grants. It had been abominably hard – if exciting – to be a part of history and meet the stuff of fantasies and cash-cow manga franchises.

But none of that managed to beat the silent hardness of eking out a living on a shop of semi-antique curios and paying the never-ending series of bills and sending half of whatever she earned to the shrine to cover what the government refused to.

The priestess remembered the day she had walked out of her home. It had taken threats, tears and finally the promise of suicide if she was forced to live the life of a true Shinto maiden, to get her grandfather to drop the issue and let her choose an alternate career path. She could have handled the duties of the position – it was the emotional crunch of living as a modern Kikyo that smacked of impending disaster to her psyche.

The breach had taken time to heal. Time none of them had been able to afford, because the only independent option left to Kagome after a lifetime of failed academics was to open a business of her own. A tiny store was what she had planned for, stocked nook and cranny with the artefacts that collected dust in the shrine's outbuildings.

"The pride of our forefathers!" her grandfather had screeched in outrage at the idea of selling their treasures for profit.

"We need the money!" Kagome had snapped back and considered that the end of that line of discussion. What she had left unsaid was that she couldn't wait to get rid of what she saw as a pile of baggage from a past which had used her and spit her out like an old stick of gum.

Her store, Memoria, brought in a tidy income but shrine maintenance expenses left her with barely anything to fall back on for anything beyond a basic living. _Heh, what luxuries,_ she grouched to herself, trying to summon the energy to pick herself off the floor and put the food away, _a freaking movie every couple months or so is a luxury right now._

The bottom line to an improved life, Kagome admitted grudgingly, was that she needed a better source of income.

Like a trust fund.

Like a lucky lottery ticket.

Like a rich husband.

_Too bad I killed the only one willing to put up with me. _

Aloud, she muttered, "Stupid universe. Stupid bills. Stupid shrine. Stupid money. Stupid universe. Stupidly unlucky me and stupid, stupid, _stupid_ evil overlords who come wagging their fat cheques at me like _stupid_ morons begging to be killed. Just. All. Stupid."

"I have no objections to being described as an evil overlord, priestess, but I must object to being called stupid," a familiar mellifluous voice remarked from her bedroom.

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**Now, he _could_ have stayed dead…but then we wouldn't have a story anymore. _ Please review?**


	10. When Monsters are Born

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: No prompts were used…mostly because no one prompted me. ::eyes you all and huffs:: **

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Kagome craned her neck and peeked into the bedroom to see a man inside.

Slim, tall body. Dark, curly hair snipped short to conform to the new era. Sharply angled face with glib, inhuman beauty. Traitorous eyed glinting hints of red in the dim light.

Unrepentant in stance, language and perception.

_Ergo,_ Kagome noted dizzily with a faint sense of déjà vu and oh-please-for-the-love-of-all-that's-holy-not-_this_-shtick-AGAIN, _unless the devil grew a spare twin while still in the womb, that's Naraku. In my house. In my __**bedroom. **__Doing God only knows what. _

And then she paled. _Oh my days…what if this version's a panty-sniffer? Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! Ugh, I'm going lingerie shopping tomorrow. Getting a whole new underwear wardrobe._

And then she looked at the grocery bill, still crumpled in her hand. _Damn, that's going to cost some good money. Which I don't really have._ Because really, in the practical scheme of things, if she were to ask the universe, "New roof for the wellhouse or new panties for me?" the universe would screech back, "Panties, panties, panties, stupid human!"

And she would naturally obey the orders of the cosmos.

And the wellhouse roof would rapidly collapse, destroying the charms keeping the portal sealed and unleashing hell on her somewhat-stabilising life.

And then she would rail at the universe, "Why meeeeeeee?"

And the universe would point a galaxy-sized middle finger at her and sing-song back, "Ha! Ha! Got! Ya!"

Because in Higurashi Kagome's world, that was how universes operated. She knew the manual backwards.

Naraku called again, curious. "Priestess, I am waiting for you to come kill me…"

"Ugh." Kagome hauled herself off the tiles and trudged to the bedroom, grabbing a meat cleaver just in case she had to use it again. Strangely enough, she didn't want to butcher him anymore. She just wanted answers.

Re-murder could always wait till she managed to figure out a way to keep him dead. _Human, my foot. He must be cloaking his aura somehow._

"How did you survive the purification?" she asked bluntly as soon as she saw him.

He appeared genuinely confused by the question. "I didn't."

"Cowdung. You never died, back then. You aren't dead now, though you _were._"

He looked away. "Yes, you made sure of that, didn't you?"

Kagome nodded, casting a surreptitious glance to her closet. It seemed intact, no stray underwear peeking out anywhere. "I did. So. Why are you here?"

"To talk?"

She wagged the cleaver at him, allowing reiki to spark through it. "No games, monster."

He sighed in exasperation. "I'm human. Not as human as you are, true. But still. Human."

Eyeing the open suspicion on her face, he added, "I have a human mother. She's dead, but there are records and a grave. I can get the file, show you her tomb, dig up her remains if you like, find the doctor who delivered me…what else do you need?"

_Whuh…? This is crossing all levels of weird!_ Kagome jiggled the cleaver again. "One. This is strange. Strange as strange could be. Two, I'd take you up on the offer if I wasn't so sure your mother's grave happens to be some oozing, pulsing ball of slime in hell somewhere. And three-"

"_Do. Not."_ His eyes were flashing crimson, naked fury on his face. Kagome stepped back in involuntary fear, reminded too much of the hanyou she had destroyed in the feudal era. "Not a word against my mother, priestess. Whoever she was, _whatever_ she was…not a word. I may be human and mostly law-abiding, but I am not, I have never been against killing and you know it. And that pretty little knife of yours won't help you much without your reiki crippling me."

Kagome stared at him, overcome by the alien sensation of everything being familiar and wrong at the same time. Deciding to deal with the threat later, she focused on the emotional holes in his story. "What do you mean by 'whatever she was?' Why are you defending whoever it was that spawned you? _WHO the hell are you,_ if you aren't the creature I demolished?"

They glared at each other for long minutes, each refusing to back down from their ancient nemesis. Finally, he dropped his eyes to the floor and slumped on the bed. A hefty sigh escaped him as he indicated that she have a seat. Adjusting her grip on the cleaver, Kagome took the stool near the dressing table and eyed him with baleful anticipation.

"My name…my real name, is Furusawa Kichirou. It was the name I was given at birth…they were being optimistic, I suppose."

"Kichirou…," Kagome rolled the name on her tongue, testing the flavour of it. "Hah. Who the hell thought to name you 'lucky son?'"

He lifted a tired shoulder. "You're a lot more foul-mouthed than you were. Remnant from that puppy-eared bastard?"

Kagome narrowed her eyes in response. It was true, but he didn't need to know for certain.

"The nurses at the maternity hospital. They wanted to help. Gave me a name that would hopefully negate the circumstances of my birth."

Now _that_ got her attention. Sensing a story there, deeper than she could imagine, Kagome leaned forward, concentrating on every nuance of him.

"The pregnancy…I'm human, priestess…but I am not…correct. The _spawning_ – that was the right word to use, by the way – of my previous self in the Feudal Era was something unnatural and unholy and against all the laws of existence. Life was created where only death and decay thrive. And to create _me_, that Naraku that was me, too many lives were taken, conjoined and eaten…you get my drift?"

She nodded. "Ugly as it gets."

"Yes…something of that has…remained. My…creations. Kagura died. Kanna did not. She must have had children at some point, there's no other explanation for why my genes propagated. My mother was impregnated by Kanna's descendant. He _had_ to be that; no one else could carry the hell I am."

"Oh, good lord…"

"Indeed. The woman went insane. The pregnancy and nightmares that came with my growing awareness of who and what I was, even as an embryo; she just went mad. The birth killed her. She killed my…uh…father, heavens, that's convoluted genealogy – in a fit of something; I don't know what. Then the birth killed _her_. Unfortunately, as we've seen, I can't be killed quite that easily. She must have already had a streak of demon blood in her that pronounced my father's genes and recreated me. I'm human. I age. I die. Then I relive. I don't think anything can kill me…old age probably has a shot and that's about it."

She had to believe him; everything about the way he spoke screamed that he was telling her the truth. And yet, that made it all the more awful, to know that such a creature had been reborn into a peaceful world. Bile rose in her throat and Kagome couldn't keep the revulsion at bay. "Monster! You really are one! Always were, always will be!"

He met her eyes squarely. Unflinchingly. "I changed my name to Naraku as soon as I legally could."

"Couldn't resist being yourself, eh?" she mocked to wash the taste of disgust away.

"Is there anyone else I deserve to be?"

"What?" she squeaked, unable to process what she was hearing. _No way. No. Freaking. Way._

Naraku, the Naraku-that-was-is-and-always-will-be, looked into her eyes. He looked with the eyes of a man who knew everything about himself, who did not regret his past, who accepted even his darkest hours with uncompromising clarity.

A man who had killed, tortured, destroyed, manipulated, tantalised and brutalised and almost created a Holocaust long before the word attained its present notoriety.

A man who had nevertheless come searching for his greatest enemy, his final foe and successful dispatcher.

Kagome looked into the eyes of the man who willingly called himself Naraku and found that he had come to her for absolution.

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**And now you all know. T_T the deep, dark secret is out. Well…one of them anyway. I'll just invent a few more as we go…trololololololol!**

**Press that reevoo button and ree-voo the naq, pweese?**


	11. When Little Bints Make Bad Decisions

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

**A/N: WHERE? ARE? MY? PROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMPTS? **

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"How dare you?" Kagome ground out, all clenched jaw and clenched fists and clenched memories of ancient tragedies still fresh in her heart.

Naraku rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. "Oh, come off it, priestess. I've always dared. Being human doesn't imbue me with the same sense of suicidal morality – any more than it did when I was Onigumo."

Looking into his eyes, into the exhaustion of a relentless destroyer, Kagome felt the energy drain from her. The building, matching weariness that assailed him gripped her too, and it was a revelation both intuitive and tragic.

Once, she would have fired up at his undelivered plea for help. She would have fought her friends and her enemies alike to give this man a second chance at time.

That was the sort of person she had been. She had had the eyes of a fresh rose, eyes that coloured everything in broad smudges of "good" and "not-so-good" and "irretrievably-bad-but-let's-try-anyway." The vision had come with sparkling pink power, zipping up and down her limbs and giving her a confidence that slow money and an unreasonable grandparent and modern-day news had diffused, one bolt of purity at a time.

The daily grind of the modern world had jaded what had thrived in the rough heartbreak of a medieval era. And all Kagome could think now was, _I don't have the energy for this._

All she could _do_ was cross the space of her flat to the door and open it. Not because she was particularly courteous to guests, but because she calculated that the effort expended in walking those twenty steps and indicating the way out would be repaid amply in relief and a black sleep after he was gone.

He exited without protest and with a promise to return, leaving her to slump against the door and drift into the heavy state between sleep and unrest. _I don't want to do this. _

She was just so tired. There was the landlord to call and hand over the rent…and the groceries were still scattered in the kitchen, left to spoil. _I should say, "Tomorrow is another day!"_

"Tomorrow…mmmmbah…." She trailed off, thinking about making a good sale. One of the more expensive tea-sets, maybe some jeweled hairpins. Putting them on better display would be the first thing to do. And get rid of the TV. All those blowsy soap operas couldn't be good for a healthy young woman – she could see herself morphing into a dumpy cat lady, puttering about in her old age to Hello Kitty jungles because "Meow Pufferdinkles and Mr. Tomtom-Tippytoes like it so much!"

_Urggh. _So getting laid had to go on the calendar too. Urgently. She couldn't afford a vibrator right now and her own fingers just didn't have any jazz to them. Pasting a mean little smirk on her lips, she hauled upright and got to work clearing the kitchen. _I bore myself, how wonderful. Should've stayed in the past instead of running back for piped water and Momma and the rest. _

Because there was no rest. And Momma was too far removed from her life to make a real difference. And a bad boyfriend seemed better than no boyfriend. And she would have eventually outgrown being compared to Kikyo. And because it would have been some kind of meaningful life. And forget the rest, at least back in the past, Naraku was dead, gone, annihilated and some other poor future sod's problem.

But she'd closed the well herself. Two hands, a lot of reiki and enough sutras to bind ten tall demons.

It had seemed like such a good, furious, heartbroken idea. No more bad floors, no more bad boyfriend and no more, never more being called Kikyo by her beloved and random strangers alike.

It was just too bad that she had forgotten the first rule of fail-safe plans – make a back-up in case the plan fails. She had forgotten the way back; her life had gone from stuck-in-caveman-days to stuck-in-luxury-I-can't-afford-to-buy days.

_I always was a thoughtless little bint, _groused Kagome – the Kagome who _hated_ being Kagome, possibly more than she had hated being Kagome-who-looks-like-Kikyo.

Naturally, she refused to admit to such a Kagome that she sorely needed the soul-work and havoc that her disconcertingly human nemesis was promising to bring to the table.

She would simply let it come as a surprise. A nasty surprise.

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**Review if you like it! Review harder if you don't!**


	12. When Exploitation Trumps Morals

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

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The door to the shop swung open, striking the quaint brass bell contraption that announced visitors. Kagome looked up from the shelf she was dusting with a welcoming smile on her face.

As the customer had expected, her cheeriness faltered at the sight of him.

As he had _not_ expected, however, it returned with a vengeance a moment later.

"You're…happy to see me," he remarked, stepping in and eyeing the pottery lying in a jumbled heap on the floor.

"Happiness is not a crime, though you may have wanted it to be."

He shot her a grievously wounded look of remonstration. "Now, now. I never wanted to outlaw joy. I merely placed my own over everyone else's."

She snorted. "That just a majorly incorrect euphemism for 'I was happy only when I was fucking up other people's lives.'"

"Well…"

"_And _'Igot better at it with each new try.'"

Naraku grimaced, knowing he wasn't going to win this one. "So," he changed the subject, "so-"

"_So_ 'I was a bastard of epic proportions.'"

"_So_," he countered firmly, "I'm here to bother you some more because it's a slow day at work and irritating you is oodles more fun than bargaining with some flat, broad, pompous connoisseur who thinks Ming vases are all the rage for wedding décor right now."

Kagome blinked. "That's an expensive wedding?"

"Very," he replied sourly. "I suppose it could be worse. They could expect me to do the flowers too, since I'm already supplying the pots."

"Pots?"

"Ming. Pots."

Wisely judging that this wasn't a conversation she wanted to get into – not least because it threatened to send _her_ into a full-blown rant about her grandfather, who was once again refusing to give her access to the shrine's finer treasures – Kagome nevertheless found herself making an unusual offer. "Might I propose an alternative?"

Naraku raised an eyebrow. "I sense deviousness brewing."

"Do they _have_ to have the real thing, or will regular antiques of decent quality do?"

"'Old need not be gold,'" he quoted, looking spectacularly disgusted. Kagome had to stifle a laugh; who would have guessed at Naraku going into moral outrage at the idea of anyone under-appreciating artefacts? _Not me_, the ex-priestess thought, _but if I can make some money out of this, he can be as outraged as he likes._

And really, who would have guessed that a day would come when an upright young woman who had once been hailed for her purity would be conspiring to thoroughly exploit a monster's scruples?

_Truly_, the formerly upright young woman thought, _the world has gone to ruin. _

"Well, if they're not too fussy, I have just the thing for them."

Naraku swung round to glare at the offending pile of pots and vases that he had nearly tripped over on the way in. "No."

"Oh, come on!" Kagome urged. "They've been lying around uselessly – and they're a full set, so I can't sell them piece by piece unless I want to do it at a loss."

"I'm not going to be your salesman, young lady."

Momentarily shaken at being addressed as such by a man who could scarcely be older than her, Kagome tried regrouping. "They're good items. Just a little dusty. Here-" She picked one up and gave it a swift whisk with a soft brush, exposing a delicate pattern of apple blossoms glazed on the pale ceramic. "See!"

_Entreat._

"Hmmm…"

"They're unsigned, which is why I can't charge as much for them as the craftsmanship is worth, but they're perfect for a wedding."

_Entice._

"Hmmm…"

"_And_ I'm really, really, _really_ good at ikebana!"

_Entrap._

"Hmmmmmmmm…"

_Exploitation, I love thee!_

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	13. When Evil Cannot Be Undone

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

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The sale went through – how could it not, Kagome wondered, with Naraku and all his smarminess doing their best to make some rich fool buy some pretty wedding pots?

The moral fallacy in collaborating with the man who had nearly ended the world, once, was not lost on the former priestess. She didn't let it stop her from appreciating the profits – or the wedding guests-turned-Memoria-customers that were trickling in steadily. For the first time, she didn't regret the pretentious name she'd given her shop. Rich people liked pretentiousness, and the name allowed her to mark up all her prices to suit their egos, which led to them trying very hard to outspend each other.

All of the above meant money, sorely needed money for Kagome and the shrine. Really, she wondered why she even bothered calling it that anymore. It was more like a ball and chain.

A very small chain, a very large ball. And as is usual with balls, attached to a man.

Kagome decided to go home that night and curse out Inuyasha in his own language. A finger traveled across the table, stopping between her eyebrows and nudging her frown. She twitched, threw it off with a small spark of reiki, and did not bother to add her lunch companion's name to her cussing-out list. She simply called him a "motherballing womaniser" right there and shoveled some more lasagna into her mouth.

Naraku took his sizzling finger back and behaved himself for the rest of the meal.

Outwardly, he was all smooth smiles. He even forbore to point out that she had absolutely no evidence of his sex life being profligate. He also didn't point out that whether he wanted to be the talk of every girl's little black book or not was immaterial – as long as there was a chance that he could get a woman pregnant, he couldn't have sex.

He wondered what she would say if he were to tell her that he was still, at the ripe, pluck-able age of twenty-eight, an un-popped cherry. He rather suspected that she wouldn't believe him until he told her the reason why. And even then, she wouldn't believe him. In fact, she would very likely try and castrate him to ensure he never sired any children.

The former demon lord turned his gaze away from Kagome to stare around the restaurant. It was a nice place, not too expensive. Kagome had wanted to celebrate her newfound success, and he'd invited himself just to annoy her. In a perverse way, he wanted her to hate him – feel the full force of her hatred in his human heart. It might have the power to do what the hatred of hundreds couldn't do in his former life. What that power did, exactly, was something even he didn't know. He had never, after all, faced the complete consequences of his actions. He had certainly been destroyed and de-powered, but he had not been annihilated.

All his enemies were centuries dead, and he was still alive.

And that was how Naraku knew he was still evil, still hungry for power and revenge. He knew, because he was terribly, terribly glad that this was so. He was even more happy that his enemies had died nameless and faceless. They hadn't even managed to become mythology. A good man, a not-evil man, wouldn't have felt that way. A good man would have wanted to go and beg forgiveness at their graves.

Scratch it; a good man would have killed himself a long time ago if he had had this life.

Naraku, on the flip side, knew that he was not a good man at all because he was ridiculously, sneeringly happy that he was alive and never going to kill himself.

He looked away from the restaurant, aware that he wanted to tear every last person in the place to shrinking, writhing pieces. He wanted to have them stalked, find their worst secrets and biggest weaknesses and then throw them into a maelstrom of tragedy, of confusion and loss and guilt. He wanted to pick up his steak knife and cut off their waitress's fingers, simply because she needed them for her job. She was young – she probably needed the job for her college fees. Taking away her hands would take away her future. He wanted to do it very badly.

_Later_, he promised himself.

Of course, there wouldn't be a later. He just had to keep promising himself the same thing, procrastinating endlessly and distracting himself when later drew near.

He paid the bill silently, adding a generous tip for the waitress – to give her a mood lift on the day she lost her hands, and did not walk Kagome back to her shop. He would be visiting her later that night in any case, when the need for a distraction presented itself.

Later.

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**::sighs:: I lied. This isn't going to be a fluffy chick fic. It's going to be a fluffy dark fic. **

**Please review!**


	14. When the Devil Calls for Sympathy

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

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"All right then, I'll go. Just don't hold it against me when you read about it in the papers tomorrow."

Kagome paused in the middle of shooing her uninvited and entirely unwelcome guest out of her apartment. "Excuse me?"

"You must remember the girl – short ponytail, pretty eyes, looked like a student…?"

She frowned in confusion.

"The one who was making sheep's eyes at me all through lunch."

Her face cleared. "Ah. What about her…you're planning on marrying her or something?"

Naraku shrugged. "I was planning to make the front page, anyway."

Kagome raised her eyebrows, faintly impressed. "_That _lavish? She must have made quite the appeal if you're running into marriage like this!" A distant part of her shook a warning finger, advising her against such flippancy. _You don't know what he's been up to_, it whispered. She told it to shut up. As long as he wasn't planning to take over the world again – and she didn't see how he could without a conveniently powerful magical jewel to hand – what Naraku did with his time was none of her business. It was disturbing enough to have him pop up at inopportune moments to pay her seemingly random visits. So far, his purpose eluded her. He couldn't seriously be considering that she grant him forgiveness; men like him…

Kagome didn't really know any other men like him, but she was willing to bet that their egos precluded the simplicity of penance. They wore their guilt as a badge of honour; their conversation was lively with self-serving hedonism.

The only thing wrong with this Naraku was the latter. It was _absent_. Not in the way he spoke or moved. Not even in his irreverent humour and casual disregard for the past even as he embraced it.

The trouble was, it just didn't look sincere to her eyes.

Kagome had often been hailed as the worst judge of character in the world simply because she liked to give people a couple more chances than they deserved. In truth, she had often felt that Inuyasha should have had that title. After all, _he_ was the one with the never-ending crush on a golem that had almost taken him on a one-way trip to hell.

_But I had the sense to break away from him when it got too much for me. _

Yet, she was the only one who had noticed that. Everyone else had just called her a fool for throwing away her adolescence on a taken boy. She _had_ been a fool, but not forever, and no one had given her any credit for that little bit.

It wasn't that she had stopped loving him – that had come much later, with the advent of adulthood and unpaid bills upon unpaid bills. It was simply that Kagome had recognised that the boy she loved was a lost cause. He had run out of chances with her, even if he had taken years to do it. Therefore, contrary to most accusations, she was a rather good judge of character. A priestess, no matter how untrained, had had to be, in order to sense hidden motivations of evil.

Those same senses were awake now, stabbing at her consciousness every time Naraku showed his face to her, every time he spoke to her, even the times he wasn't speaking.

_He's making it up! He's making it up! He's making it up!_ they screamed.

_But why would he?_ she asked, keeping a watchful eye on the former hellspawn as he snagged an apple from the basket on the table. He reached for the knife, holding his hand over it for a suspended moment.

Kagome shivered, sensing danger, sensing dread and death and sorrow.

Then he took his hand back and settled for using his teeth instead.

Almost instantly, the sense of terror was gone, but she remained alert. Something was badly wrong with this man. She had always known it, but that was a former life.

_Why didn't I think that he'd be the same sort of creature now?_ _Is it because he's so good at acting human?_

But that did her no good. Humans were capable of evil on the same scale as demons. If anything, they were even more base about it, because they weren't even acting on a natural instinct for power.

She wondered why she had not seen his young man as harmful before he had reached for that knife.

He seemed to be thinking the same thing, for he remarked, "Loosen your shoulders. It's not _your_ throat I want to carve up."

Horrified, Kagome sat down on her sofa with a muffled thump. "...the front page!"

His eyes were faintly red in the dim light of a table lamp. He looked smooth, beautiful, lethal. Then he smiled, and she found herself disarmed, yet buzzing with apprehension. He was pushing all the wrong buttons, she realised. He was telling her that he wanted to kill someone, that he was going to…he had told her that he would do it if she made him leave her flat.

"Are you holding me hostage for her life?" she whispered, her throat choked with fear and fury at herself. _How could I have let myself relax around this creature for even a second?!_

"Just tonight," he said. There was a note of apology in his voice. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" was all she could ask, and she didn't even know what she was asking about.

He took the closest association. "Because I need a leash. If I don't sit here and look at you, and remember how I destroyed people once, I'll find myself doing it again." He paused, closing his eyes briefly at the frozen look of revulsion and denial on her face. "This time it will be worse. This time my humanity isn't keeping me in check, Kagome. _It's_ _egging me on._ I have to stay here tonight…delay the time of the kill till the desire has passed."

She listened, mute, listening to her instincts scream at her for an arrow in is chest, for her arms around his body, holding him in tight comfort, for his death and his safety all at once.

It was his humanity messing with her, she realised. Her power still remembered Naraku as a half-demon, and then an amalgamated full demon. He was human now, and it was swaying her into wanting to save him, even as it condemned his blood.

"Won't you let me stay tonight?" he found himself pleading.

Kagome wondered. _Give evil a chance?_ He was – had always been – pure evil, just as she was simply pure. He hadn't ever been worthy of a chance.

But then, he had never come to her asking her to make him worthy, either.

Now he was, and she felt herself getting angry with them both for this repeated conflict. _Vanquishing evil was never this complicated in all the legends!_

"Please, Kagome." His face was turned away, his fingers drumming restlessly on the table, sticky with apple juice.

_Blood is sticky too_, they seemed to be telling her.

"I really wish I'd roasted you properly back at the final battle! And Kanna too!" she snarled, but got up and locked the door, implicitly agreeing to his request.

"I'm glad you didn't. But you should have."

If there was a grateful smile in his voice, she didn't let herself recognise it. And if it tilted his lips, turning to warmth on his face, she turned away before she had to see it.

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**I wish Kagome would make up her mind about this man already! By the way, what do you think of the way I'm characterising Naraku? I want to keep his essence true…and I want to redeem him and give him a proper ending without changing the fact that he is evil incarnate and always will be. Am I doing it right? **


	15. When Evil Makes a Promise

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

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"Is this poisoned?" Kagome gave the French toast a hesitant poke with her fork.

"Eat it and find out!" the cook, flaunting himself in a frilly peach apron and trousers and bare feet and bare arms and bare _everything_ else, informed her with a careless flick of his spatula.

Kagome tried to choose between her rumbling tummy and her snarling common sense. Naraku took advantage of her preoccupation to drizzle warm honey all over her toast and set down a cup of thick hot chocolate at her elbow.

Kagome blinked at him, trying to see past all the golden-pale skin and the gleaming black curls, though that might just have been an effect of the morning sunshine.

"It'll get cold if you don't make your mind up soon – and I'm not reheating it," he said.

Kagome blinked again, voted in favour of rumbly tummy and took a teeny, tiny bite of honey-laden French toast.

And went still.

"Kagome?"

No response.

"Kagome?"

Nothing.

"Priestess with the nonsensical fashion sense that was not at all in line with feudal Japan?"

Utter silence.

"LEGS!"

Kagome jerked out of her trance and blinked around owlishly. "I'm alive," she stated with numb surprise.

Naraku resisted the urge – his very first such urge in both lifetimes – to slam his head against a wall. "You actually thought I poisoned it?!"

"…you were talking murder up and murder down and murder sideways last night, after all."

"I'm getting a headache. _And you still ate it?!_"

Kagome shrugged and popped half a toast into her mouth. "Oo ungee," she said around it.

Naraku decided that he didn't want to find out just how the woman was feeding herself on a daily basis. Muttering something about the laundry, he stalked off to the washing machine and left her to her gobbling. When he returned, he was fully dressed in yesterday's shirt and had managed to tame his curls somewhat. "I'm off," he said.

Kagome dropped the dishes she was washing with a _clunk_. "You can't go!"

"Why ever not?" he asked, his head cocked to one side, curls falling in his eyes.

She couldn't explain it, not when he looked so _normal_. Not after he had just spent the morning cooking her the best un-poisoned French toast she'd ever had, and wandering around mussed and shirtless from a good night's sleep and looked and acted and talked just like…just like…

Kagome didn't want to articulate it even it to herself. If she did, she would also have to acknowledge the awful loneliness of the life she led, as well as her physical and emotional frustration. Vibrators got boring after a while. Men – eligible and attractive men – did not want to waste time coaching a grown woman how to kiss and be a good screw.

Kagome knew that she was completely un-date-able; but she didn't want to admit that this morning with her once-and-sometimes-still-maybe enemy was the closest she was going to get to a domestic morning with a good-looking young man who looked like he was actually having a nice time with her.

But that wasn't why she couldn't let him leave just yet. The real reason now…she just shook her head. "You just can't."

"Kagome, my delicious little poppet-" he dodged the dishrag she flung at him "-much as I'd love to stay here and try to poison you with my culinary skills, you simply _cannot_ afford to employ me as your personal chef."

"Huh?"

"I'm expensive," he explained.

"I'm getting a headache…"

"No," Naraku corrected, "that's _my_ line."

"I'm stealing it!" she scowled at him and planted herself between him and the door.

He gave her an exasperated glare. "Priestess. _What is your problem?_"

There it was again, the sense of menace about him. Kagome grew even more determined to not let him out the door. She hesitated, then spit it out, "How do I know it's safe?" She looked at him steadily, with the eyes of a battle-hardened woman and not a soft morning airhead. "You were planning murder last night. How do I know that once I let you out of here, you won't do just that?"

"Take my word for it, I suppose," he snapped back. "How would I know!"

She gaped at him. "You…don't…know?"

"I am evil. I might also be a psychopath – I never had it tested," he said simply. "I can't predict the desire to do something nasty."

Kagome shook her head, feeling numb. "How have you managed to resist it all this time? You _have_, haven't you?"

Naraku shrugged and explained his system of procrastination and distraction. "…but it's working a little…well, it's sort of shaky these days," he finished.

Then, he added slowly, "You're the leash." Looking up, he saw her frame, thin and haggard, highlighted against the door. He felt almost sorry for her. "It's hard on you, isn't it?" he asked rather kindly.

Kagome didn't trust herself to speak. She didn't even trust herself to think.

"There just isn't another way." He turned away from her and sat down to tie his shoelaces. When he moved past her she didn't resist, and he had to be careful because she looked like the wall was the only thing holding her up. "Kagome?"

She looked up with tired eyes.

"I'll come back. That is, if I want to do something bad…it's really a question of _when_, but I'll come right back here."

Her eyes showed no trust. There was nothing he could do about that, so he gave her a reassuring smile – he tried to make it natural – and let himself out without further ado.

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**::sighs:: What a mess. Evil, preventing it…is such an unholy mess for everyone involved. **

**Please review! **


	16. When Sick is Just Sick

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.**

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"Come. _Now._"

The voice issuing from the speaker was harsh, broken, with a _sick_ quality. It did not surprise Kagome very much; in the weeks since she had last seen Naraku, she had been training her mind to expect such a call. The days when she had believed in the infallibility of promises and good intentions were long past. Who she was now was a woman who understood well that an evil man had decided to curb himself, and also that he was finding it difficult.

She was now a woman who knew quite well the failures that difficulty can birth. Some of them, she felt, could be excused. Some should not.

She wasn't quite sure which category to place this one under. If Naraku had been content to call himself Kichirou for the rest of his life, she would have known how to judge him. She would not have committed the hypocrisy of equating him with his former incarnation – hadn't she spent her entire adolescence fighting Kikyo's face and fate?

But Naraku was so adamant about being Naraku, without care for the passage of time and people, that she had to hold him up to his past. Even if she didn't want to, because he was her only link to what she had once thought would be the rest of her life. And because he was beautiful in a way few men can be – his was not just physical beauty, though he possessed that in abandon too; his was the beauty of _honesty._ He was – had always been – brutally truthful. Not about his doings or his motivations, or even his feelings – but about _what he was_.

He had called himself a power-mad monster, then and now. Well, perhaps not quite power-man now…he was the sort who enjoyed plotting far more than he enjoyed hard work. In today's age, he would have to work very hard indeed, if his special brand of evil was to succeed on a grand scale. Kagome believed she could safely say that Naraku would not be engaging in any attempts to dominate the world, or even to destroy it in one feel swoop.

One by one, now? That was a method she was less trusting of. He had admitted to homicidal urges, admitted to the impossibility of keeping them suppressed forever unless she offered herself to him as a lifelong morality chain.

She turned all this over in her head as she drove to his house in her rickety little car, careful of traffic though she should have been speeding there in panic. But what was the use, she thought to herself. Whatever it was in his voice that had churned her gut when she had heard his summons, it told her that he had done something, that it was too late to stop him.

_Dear heaven, I hope he's not expecting me to help him clean up whatever mess he's made!_

He probably did. What else could a killer do, except clean up the mess of blood and gore? What further would this killer do, except ask her, maybe even beg her, to stick to his side so that she could prevent him from doing it again?

Kagome did not want to consider that he might refuse to stop; if that had been the case, he wouldn't have called her with such a pathetic, lost, guilty voice.

_All the same, I'm not going to help clean his mess._

* * *

The kindest thing Kagome could say about Naraku's mess was that it was widespread.

Fortunately, she was not expected to be the housemaid.

Just the nurse. He even had the outfit.

Kagome had promptly thrown a large bottle of cough syrup at her "patient's" head, which (thankfully) ruined the extremely skimpy nurse's uniform he'd procured from places she didn't wish to know about, and (jury was divided on this one) had him stripping so that he could clean off all the sticky medicine and remaining stripped with just a towel around his hips because all his clothes were currently acting as carpet.

"Here," she growled, tossing him a freshly laundered blanket, which he promptly wrapped himself in and huddled on his bed, shivering.

If he didn't look so miserably ill and feverish, Kagome would have hanged the consequences and murdered him herself. When she had rushed in, expecting a horrorhouse of gore, and found instead a sniffly, croaky, _literally_ sick former evil overlord, something within her had blown. Her temper, at first, and then something else.

She didn't know what to call it. It had been a spark of pure relief, followed by that unnameable sensation which had taken away her fear of his psychosis and would-be-murderous hands. He was _there_, cold and needy and _human_ – and wanting someone to take care of him. And he had called her, his enemy, because he had no one else to call. She had looked him in the eye and wondered what sort of man calls his enemy to fuss over him when he's got the flu. The cold loneliness that had looked back at her was what had touched her heart. He hadn't said anything about what he felt; she did not believe he even knew what he had revealed, being fuzzy from medication.

But that wasn't important right now. She'd sort it out later. What was important was that someone finally needed her, and whether she responded was entirely up to _her_.

_But I already have_, she thought with dry humour. What else was she doing here, sorting out his pyjamas and laundering his sheets and organising his medicine if not responding to his silent plea?

_And to think I'd given up on people. On the best…no, on their feelings. _

She met his eyes, red-brown in the dim light of the chandelier, watching her from within his blanket-cave. The smile she gave him, the one he returned – they felt natural.

_What are you doing to me…you, are you my enemy?_

* * *

**D'awww? No? **


End file.
